It's been a long time coming, but Battlefield 6's new standalone battle royale, Battlefield Redsec, is Battlefield Studios' second stab at the genre after Battlefield 5's lacklustre Firestorm in 2019. While Redsec is a free-to-play, separate experience from Battlefield 6, it does feature shared cross-progression in many forms, which'll avoid the pitfall of having to grind two games at once.
Firstly, how about that download, the bane of way too many recent games? Being free-to-play, Redsec is available as a separate download on all platforms, but if you already own Battlefield 6, then you'll be able to boot it from the main menu. Hopefully this makes having two separate but inextricably linked games slightly less annoying and confusing for everyone, though only time will tell.
Moving on to the main course, overall account progression is unified between both Battlefield 6 and Redsec, though there are challenges specific to each one. This means your account level and unlocked gear and customisation options are shared; you level up in one game, you'll see it reflected in the other.
Likewise, the battle pass is also shared between them, letting you gain battle pass XP and unlock all the same rewards—there are no exclusive items behind either game. There's a host of new cosmetics and other items in the Season 1 battle pass, so you'll be making progress no matter where you spend your time going forward.
However, while the battle pass itself is shared, certain events can feature their own paths with challenges relating to either Battlefield 6 or Redsec. In other words, you might have to dip your toes in from time to time to tick off a few tasks.
All of this is to say that it's basically like the mainline Call of Duty entries and the standalone Warzone, which I think is what we all expected anyhow. You can flip between both, stick to Battlefield 6 and completely ignore the battle royale if you're fed up with 'em, or you can solely play Redsec if that's what you've always wanted from Battlefield.
